DIY Character Lawn Signs

What you need

Printout of character to size
Carbon transfer paper
3/4inch x 4 ft. x 8 ft. Plywood
Jigsaw
Sander
White exterior paint
Paint brushes
Acrylic paints
Gloss Clear Triple Thick Glaze Spray Paint
Shipping tape/packaging tape

Lets do it!

For me the hardest part was picking out what theme I wanted to go with. I searched “Halloween Disney Characters” in google images and after scrolling through probably a thousand pictures decided I wanted to go with Mickey Mouse characters. I saved the Pluto and Donald Duck images that I liked to my desktop.

I then opened those saved images in Microsoft Word, cropped and enlarged them to the size I was planning on cutting them out. It would be great if our home printers could print off poster size prints but they don’t. (If you have a massive printer hook a sister up!) I printed off the images (over about 10 pieces of paper each) in greyscale and draft printer settings to save on ink, then pieced and taped the characters together.

Time to cut! I used the shipping tape to tape my paper templates on the plywood. After placing the carbon transfer paper under the templates I traced the outline (no middle details) of the character. I then removed both the template and carbon transfer paper and was left with an outline to cut. I whipped out my jigsaw (making sure I had a wood blade and the settings set to plywood) and cut the character out.

I sanded all sides of the character making sure the front surface was as smooth as possible (starting with an 80 grit and progressing to 220 grit paper,) and wiped with a damp cloth to remove any dust. Then I painted three coats of white exterior white paint on all sides to make sure the wood got a good seal.

I brought out the carbon transfer paper again and lined it up under the template on my cutout plywood character and traced the details. Then the fun part! I painted the characters over several days, typically while binge watching netflix and eating large quantities of popcorn! 🙂

After I was done painting Pluto and Donald Duck I took them outside and gave them two good coats of clear glaze spray paint on all sides to make sure they could withstand any type of weather north Texas was going to throw at them!

I’ll admit these did take some time to make, but I am super happy with how they turned out and am looking forward to adding to the collection, making my goal to make one new character a year!

Have you made any outdoor decorations for the holiday? If so, I’d love to hear! Happy DIYing!